The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $26.4 million for 14 research grants that will expand our understanding of biodiversity. “This year’s awardees will study subjects as diverse as the biota of the Amazon and its environment, how nutrient input drives biodiversity in China’s extremely oxygen-deprived–or eutrophic–Lake Taihu, the components of tree biodiversity, and the lineage of species in Hawaii,” according to a press release issued by NSF.

“The innovative and interdisciplinary teams of the Dimensions of Biodiversity program may accomplish in 10 years what, with a piecemeal approach, would have taken 50 years–a half-century we can no longer afford to wait,” says Joann Roskoski, NSF deputy assistant director for Biological Sciences.

This is the third year that NSF has funded research through its Dimensions of Biodiversity programs. The projects that use remote sensing will be co-funded by NASA. The program aims to integrate our understanding of taxonomy, genetic diversity, and functional role of taxa in order to understand the key dimensions of biodiversity in a changing world.